My First Opinion Of The Book

My First Opinion Of The Book

My initial opinion of the book was mixed. I definitely thought the book was different and a strange type of book as it did not follow the traditional key elements that are incorporated for most books. However after watching the presentation of the book a second time and reading it for myself I have concluded that the book is a very fun and new type of book and I personally believe that the book would be good for some adults as well as children. I believe the book is an appropriate selection for "Little People's Day" as the books' message and most possible pieces that would be devised would not only be interesting and exciting for our target audience but would also result in them leaving the theatre with a resounding good message in their heads. 

Evaluation

Evaluation

What did you think about the overall performance?

My personal opinion regarding the performance was that is was a success and flowed in excellently with the other performances from the other strands. I am particularity  impressed with the performance because it still flowed smoothly and was held the attention our audience despite the fact that we were missing a member of the ensemble.

Was it suitable for the target audience?

Yes, we adapted the stimulus to make it suitable for little children. Our utilization of songs were particularly effective as it furthered our audience's attention interest in the piece. The song also helped our piece flow and was an excellent performance finale to what was essentially a massive ensemble piece with input from all the strands.

Which piece of our show worked the best and why?

In my opinion the song element of our piece functioned the best as it strengthened the flow of the piece and was the sequence in the piece that I believe held most of the audience's attention and had them most excited. The sequence also had the ensemble interact with the audience as Sarah asked the audience what they dream about multiple times during the song which also ensured the audience kept attentive during the sequence.    

Which devising skills were used to make the piece?

We primarily practised how to work as an ensemble, we did this by having a lot of group talks discussing individual strengths and weaknesses, so we can understand each other better and build up to be a far more effective company. We also had an advantage as we had already had a fair amount of experience working as an ensemble cast from our two previous terms. Ensuring that each group's performance flowed effectively in to a full ensemble piece. 

What character(s) did you play and how had these been developed?

I initially played a rocking horse which required my physical theatrical skills and I then went on to play other various characters such as a bored office worker, a child and a dinosaur. All these characters served the purpose and message of the piece.   

What have you learnt about devising?

I have learnt and began to see devising as a process with actual stages that must be completely fulfilled if a satisfactory piece is desired. I have learnt that devising also helps to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the ensemble as well as the individual members of the company.

What could have been developed further and why?

I feel that the energy could have been developed so that it matched the initial level of energy at the beginning of our rehearsals and devising sessions. I believe that the energy may have been lacking slightly as a result of the constant rehearsals which caused the ensemble to perform the entire piece as one step after the other as if in a robotic fashion which resulted in the piece lacking a fair amount of energy or initial excitement.     

Children's Theatre

Children's Theatre

Polka theatre
What do they do?
Polka theatre is one of the few theatre's in the UK that is dedicated to presenting work for the younger audiences of the nation. Over 90,000 people go to the polka theatre each year.

Who do they make their work for?
They devise pieces for audiences aged 1-13 years that are comical and appropriate for the audience.

What's on at the moment?

• Circle in the sand
• Puss in boots
• Dot, Squiggle and rest
• STATIk
• World of stories and music
• Gorilla

http://www.polkatheatre.com/whats-on

Unicorn theatre

What do they do?

The unicorn Theatre is the UK's leading professional theatre for young audiences, They serve over 60,000 children and their parents or carers every year both on and off stage through workshops and performances.

Who  do they make their work for?

Young people of all ages.

What's on at the moment?

• One little world
• Ancient Mechanicals
• Southbank stories
• Breaking the ice
• Martyr
• Raw

https://www.unicorntheatre.com/whatson

How might these places help us devise our work?

These theatre productions allow us to analyse key elements of the pieces that we could work into our own ensemble piece that would help us further develop our piece and ensure its appropriate for our target audience and their understanding and full attention.    

11/06/2015

11/06/2015

Devising skills

What devising skills did we discuss today?

Today we used improvisation, physical theatre and creativity.

Which of these skills are you most confident in using?

Improvisation as I am able to perform to an adequate level according to the tone of the scene. 

Our piece is for a very specific audience. Why is theatre for children so valuable?

Theatre for children is valuable because it allows them to see different ensemble's, and therefore different people's perspective on the world which aid them in forming there own as they grow older.
Log questions:

What activities did we do today?

We recapped the storybook and all of us were able to say our opinion about the book and how it affected us, this was helpful because we then began to have a great sense of the book and the meaning and how it was significant for little children, as the author's message is for children to dream so that when they are older they're dream will come true.

What ideas did you/your group come up with? 

At the beginning of devising our piece we decided to keep the movements simple as it was going to be shown to little kids who can loose interest really quickly and possibly wouldn't follow along to technical movements. We decided to structure the entire ensemble piece around a young boy (portrayed by Rory) speaking about how his dad doesn't dream and the endless possibilities that his dad could dream about as this would allow our target audience to relate to the piece much easier quicker which would ensure their attention for the entire piece.  

Why did you reject some of the things?
We had had to reject various previous ideas that we had as they did not serve the story and flow of our piece as it halted some of our more relevant sequences and would only confuse our target audience effectively disengaging them and losing their full attention.

What acting skills/performance skills are you using? 

We used physical theatre because we concluded that our target audience would be far more likely to be attentive to the physical theatrical side of our piece instead of the more advanced sides and skills we could include which would perhaps confuse or disengage our audience.

18/06/2015

18/06/2015

What activities did we do today?
We began the day partaking in a physical theatre workshop that was devised and instructed by "Frantic Assembly" who were invited by Roseby. 

What ideas did you/your group come up with?

We continued to further develop our initial ideas and we began to block our performance. We had slightly altered our original devised dialogue which would be delivered by Rory in order for it to be more interesting for our younger audience and to allow us to add more exciting sequences into our performance such as the sequence in which we were on the moon and the earlier sequence in which we were pirates.

Why have you chosen some of these ideas to develop further? You need to EXPLAIN WHY?
We have chosen to develop the ideas that had already previously had a stable sequence without the further devising them. Due to this we discarded certain ideas. We also developed ideas that could be made more exciting and intricate as this would ensure the full attention of our target audience such as our pirate sequence which we developed in to the song.

Why did you reject some of the ideas? You need to EXPLAIN WHY?
Certain ideas were discarded as we could not conclude as to how they could be further developed or given an appropriate sequence during the performance that was stable, well flowing and exciting. Some ideas were rejected as they were simply viewed as irrelevant to the necromancer and did not serve the story nor other sequences in the performance in any way. 

What acting skills/performance skills are you using? EXPLAIN WHY these are suitable for the piece and the target audience.
We utilized a fair amount of physical theatre, although we found this slightly challenging as we all wanted to be seen and heard in our various sequences which involved big and exaggerated movements. Due to the fact that are target audience is quite young, the physical theatre used is appropriate as it is very appealing to them and further ensures their full attention.

26/06/15

26/06/15

What ideas did you/your group come up with? 
Today we had to completely block our group performances, we had to link the rest of the other 4 groups piece to ours, as my groups piece was the starting of the performance. It made it easier to clump together our ideas as most of the groups had the same ideas as one another. For example Matteo's group was similar to ours so we combined it with the piece we'd created the week before, we did this by taking pieces of his groups original scene and placing them in areas of our scene where we felt it was suitable. In doing this it allowed each groups scene to transition and flow smoothly in to one another creating a functional ensemble piece as we have had in previous terms. 

Why have you chosen some of these ideas to develop further? You need to EXPLAIN WHY?

One of the final group piece's we developed (Roseby's group) 4 of them were lined up next to each other doing different movements, we decided to make a row of 4 lines behind them and copy their exact movements we did that for a count of 4 and in the time of the music we headed to the back so it was a circle of us doing it, we thought of this because all of us could be involved and it could show the atmosphere more if a load of us are doing big movements.

Why did you reject some of the ideas? You need to EXPLAIN WHY?

Certain groups ideas were rejected because they would not flow properly with the entire ensemble piece or would not serve any purpose regarding the story of the ensemble piece.

What acting skills/performance skills are you using? EXPLAIN WHY these are suitable for the piece and the target audience.
We utilized physical theatre as it was extremely suitable as the ensemble's target audience were young children and therefore was the most suitable theatrical skill to use in devising the ensemble piece.